Is heat necessary?

I don't think it is required per se (and I am not expert) but it does add a level of 'depth' to your flavor. I am a spice junky so I tend to over heat things. I need my wife to help me dial it back to normal levels.

I agree that it's probably more about depth, than heat. Sometimes ingredients that are super hot on their own are used not so much for the heat, but to play off other flavors. Take cayenne pepper in Hollandaise for example. Without it. the sauce is kind of flat and pasty. Add a quarter teaspoon of cayenne, however, and the sauce comes to life, without being "hot" in the least.

As a judge, we're there tasting quite a bit of BBQ. You want yours to stand out in a good way. Bland stands out, but not good. Overly spicy stands out, again not good. You want something that in a bite or two says "DAMN, THAT'S AWESOME". It'll need some depth without conflicting (many sauces conflict with rubs). You dont have to have cayenne, but cayenne does have a good pepper flavor and in tiny amounts does as Mdboatbum says, brings things to life.

For competition BBQ you would be "shooting yourself in the foot". You need big bold flavors, both spicy and sweet. They need to compliment each other and after one bit a judge says wow what great flavor. If I et a whole rib bone my tongue says that sure was spicy but sweet. Remember judges et one bite usually and make a decision. Cook competition for judges and cook at home BBQ the way you like.

I tend to take two bites a medium then a small bite after the palates clears when judging when I can. The double bite helps me confirm what I'm tasting.

Listening after judging around the table three things around taste may come up that are not usually appreciated. For some palates it can be more pronounced than others.
1-Meat candy overly sweet or cloying.
2-overly spiced (not just hot) to the point you feel that the next sample may be screwed your taste buds though eating some parsley helps clear that problem.
3- off flavors that could be categorized as but not always the actual cause like, burnt, chemical either 'lighter fluid' or 'injection' or even a spoiled taste.

These are the ones that tend to bring the scores down

You may wonder what is driving this. Well, primarily, it is because my wife has colitis and cannot handle anything spicy hot at all

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Sort of OT, but I find this odd. I've been dealing with ulcerative colitis for over 20 years, and love spicy foods. The big trigger for me is too many gas producing veggies combined with high stress level. I can eat hot spicy stuff 24 x 7, and believe it improves my blood pressure and heart health.

I've never judged BBQ, but have judged world class chili comps. Loved the spicy stuff, hated the chili that was more sweet than heat. I love sugar, just not in my BBQ or chili so much.

"Sweet heat" seems to be the current wow factor in judging. A balance is essential as one way or the other will result in a low score. The question is where is that balance?

Bear in mind that smoke mutes heat. You can put a lot of hot stuff on ribs, for example, at the start of the cook and it will not be anything close to 5 alarm at the end. Heat added during the wrapping phase will get less smoke, and present as having more heat.

You should cook for the judges, though. If your wife can't hand hot, cook some meat without the heat. Heat is relative, but it should not be making the judges reach for the water. It should add flavor and interest, but you aren't getting points for making it only spicy.

bmonkman said:

We are hoping to enter competitive grilling sometime over the next couple of years and she was wondering if we would be shooting ourselves in the foot (competitively speaking) if we tried to develop something she could tolerate.

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I had this discussion with a friend of mine a coule weeks ago. His wife has a medical issue that limits the types of food she can eat. He says that since they applied the ingredients that she can eat into their bbq recipes, their scores have dropped and hardly get calls anymore. But they continue to do it because she enjoys the process of developing the recipes. He is considering going back to the recipes they used when they were winning.

I guess for you it matters what is more important, the development of the recipes and having a good time, or winning some money. This is not to say that the recipes you create cannot win, but the balance of heat and sweet is important.

I think a lot of it can be regional. We used to cook in the SW where a bit of heat was often used. We now cook in Hawaii, where sweet is the expectation.

We did an event last year where we placed 3rd in chicken, but a judge said it was a bit on the spicy side. We just did this same event this past weekend and made some tweaks:

1) removed cayenne, and white pepper from rub
2) removed peppercorns from brine
3) Went with a sweeter sauce, with no heat

It must have worked, because we were lucky enough to finish 1st in that category. I suppose if I had to choose what to turn-in nowdays, I'd lean to the sweeter side as opposed to the spicy side.

Best of luck.

bmonkman said:

So to the judges out there - have you judged turn-ins that were very light on the heat (and perhaps no heat at all) and had another type of rub that you found interesting and distinct AND it scored well at your table?

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I'll qualify this comment first by saying I've cooked on a comp team for years now, and even though I'm a certified judge, I do very little judging.

Having said that, when I am judging, if a product lands in front of me, I'm not judging it with an expectation of a certain heat level. If the meat can handle a fair amount of heat (like a pork rib), yet the taste still pops and the heat is balanced, then the taste score would reflect that. If another entry has virtually no heat at all, but still has excellent flavor, thats fine too. I'm not judging based upon a pre-requisite that a certain amount of heat must be present to score well.

We did a competition earlier this year that had a chicken wing category as an ancillary contest. The top 2 finishers in this event both turned in non-traditional flavor profiles on their wings. I didn't judge the event, but I was able to taste the entries from both the Top 2, as they were next to us. One of the guys did an asian teriyaki/fruit glaze of some type with very little heat, the other guy had a subtle, smokey flavor on his wings, but no real over the top heat. One of the 2 guys was a trained chef at a successful restaurant, while the other guy was more of a backyard, occassional comp guy. Both entries were excellent in terms of taste, IMO.

My team turned in a more traditional buffalo style wing, glazed with a blend that contained Frank's Red Hot sauce, so they weren't over the top, but definitely had a prominent heat flavor. The didn't finish in the top 5.

I think you'll find a prominent, memorable flavor profile scores well, with or without heat.